(Not sure if my reply is needed anymore, nor if it will make it or
if my original will show up and this becomes a duplicate, as
I ended up resubscribing so maybe I can reply. Anyway, if there
is interest I may update the boot disk building portion to
optionally support more features (size, memory management, ramdrive,
and/or NICs) or leave as is if no one really cares. KJD)

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Ian McCall wrote:
...

I'd like to make a bootable ISO of FreeDOS which then directly loads a
DOS utility I need. I can use the makeiso.bat on the install ISO to add

...

Is there a HOW-TO for going about this anywhere? If not, does anyone
have any advice on how to proceed? The utility in question is

This is sorta like the INSTALL ISO image, but much simpler.
Unzip the builder zip, add your files to the CD\ directory,
edit CD\AUTORUN.BAT to run your program and edit mkisofs.rc for
the proper CD volume name, then run included makeiso.bat.
It runs the DJGPP port of mkisofs to build FDOEM.ISO. This is
the bootable CD-ROM ISO image with your program, burn it to a
CD-ROM and give it a go.

I plan to add examples, but I'm not really sure what program to
use that is useful, small, and freely distributable. If you
download the builder.zip and run makeiso.bat without adding anything,
you get a very basic bootable DOS CD-ROM; just DOS (kernel),
command interpreter (FreeCOM), XMS support via himem64, mouse
support using CuteMouse, and of course CD-ROM access to the
booted CD-ROM.

Hope this helps some potential FreeDOS users. Send me a note
if you have any suggestions to make it more useful. (Not saying
I'll have time to implement them, but maybe :-) I tested on
Windows NT5 system, but should work under DOS as well (except
the boot disk building program).